Follow our progress!

Our short animation film now has been published online for everyone to watch and spread! It’s been an exciting moment for our team, and for everyone who as eagerly awaited this moment. We hope you enjoy it!

Next on our todo is wrapping up the 4-dvd box release, NTSC/PAL discs with extras and documentary, and 2 DVD-ROMs with tutorials, and all the data to reproduce the fim entirely. 🙂

-Ton-

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495 Responses to “Sintel online premiere”

Not bad, except its again about dragons. And again dragons are all positive and beloved, they sing and dance and eat nothing but flowers. Dragons are useless and passive like hamsters nowadays. There is no fun about them now. There is nothing interesting about friendship between human and dragons now – most cinematographic dragons obey human directions happily, like puppies. And girls are always into puppies, you know.

There is dragon’s perfidy? dragon’s might? dragon’s wisdom?
Just imagine! A tiny wounded dragon play with young girl feelings, his wing is broken by some knight and he is seeking for revenge. He make girl meet the knight and she fall in love. Wedding. Knight ask “Sintel, will you marry me?” Girl is all ashamed “Wait a little.. there should be no secrets between us.. meet my dear friend”. Doors are opened and cute baby dragon entered. He stop near the knight, look at him with his big eyes.. Attack! Dragon bite off knights balls, burn everything with his fire and fly away though the window. Happy end.

Dragons should be dragons, otherwise draw them as butterflies cause butterflies they are.

I guess it’s time to add my two cents and thanks. (WARNING: spoilers. But anybody reading this deep in the thread before having seen the movie deserves what they get :P)

First, my thanks: Sintel is a great movie and I was not disappointed. My only regret is not purchasing the DVD early enough to get in the on-line credits.

I fully expected a dragon slaying from the start. I was saddened that it had to be Scales, but I would have felt betrayed if in the end Scales had somehow survived. When something with a mouth and teeth that big sniffs you and suddenly rears back, you stab first and ask questions later (“hmm, smells tasty” is far too possible).

On first viewing, I got suspicious when the baby dragon reacted in fear to Sintel (“Huh? Why would Scales forget that quickly? Wrong dragon?”), became more than worried when Scales sniffed Sintel, to the point of thinking “No!” as Sintel attacked.

At first, I thought that Sintel had been kept young by some magical bond with Scales, and grew old (to near her true age) at his death. Too much influence from the likes of Dragon Heart, I guess. I had thought Sintel’s aged reflection in the bowl was due to the milkiness of the liquid and the lighting. Even if I had thought otherwise, it could have been scrying her true age, but her accumulated scars say otherwise.

I didn’t twig at the Shaman’s line abound innocent blood because it’s so clichéd that it lost its effectiveness as a foreshadow (my one problem with the dialog script), but in hindsight…

One thing that occurred to me (fourth viewing): the guardian had been tracking Sintel for some time. The way she looks around made me think she feels like she’s being followed, and the way the guardian comes running out of the mist makes me think he knew exactly where she would be (possibly even when): he probably took a faster route to the ridge and “cut her off at the pass” (and thus why Sintel was looking in the wrong direction). Still doesn’t say who he was or why he tried to kill her.

The one possible plot “hole” is if she has been alone for as long as she can remember, where did she learn to fight so well? Where did she learn such tenderness? Where did she learn to talk? Instinct and being in the vicinity of others (while still being alone) covers some of it, but what about the rest? One reasonable explanation is she lost parents (or at least one of them, she may never have known the other) at a relatively late age in a tragedy the memory of which she has completely blocked out (possible considering she had “blocked out” the memory of the passing years while searching for Scales).

Sintel might have a darker past than the blade.

An amusing observation. I had begun writing a story about a girl raised by a dragon before even Big Buck Bunny was released, yet there are aspects of Sintel that are very close to what I’ve written or have in mind. Common influences, I guess 🙂 (two of mine I know to be CJ Cherryh’s “The Faded Sun” trilogy and “Cuckoo’s Egg”).

The eyes are absolutely amazing. Sintel’s are a bit iffy, but the guardian’s and Scales’ eyes say more than Sintel’s and the shaman’s words. From Scales, I get “Forget about me. Run. Look after my kid.”. More importantly, from Scales’ eyes, I believe that Scales understood what happened, probably better than Sintel.

I can understand some people not finding Sintel lovable, but I find it impossible to hate her because I sympathize with her (I clung too tightly to the past and lost much).

Again, thank you for the wonderful movie. I truly enjoyed it. It may even have been therapeutic. I’m looking forward to the next project.

Congratulations to the Blender/Durian team,
for making an amazing and original plot out of a corny subject,
for the stunning graphics,
especially for the animation of Sintel’s face and the giant dragons, the
shaman and breathtaking landscapes,
for the full-immersive audio (after watching the movie, I had to realize that I
was in my living room),
for the wonderful teamwork which has allowed this incredible result,
for the great improvement of Blender this movie has promoted,
for Blender itself: there aren’t words describe this fantastic project.

In my interpretation of the movie,
Sintel’s hair got gray due to the sudden pain she felt when realizing what she’d done.
I’ve heard about a young woman’s hair getting all white overnight when she learned that her family was killed.
I’d say that Sintel is a metaphor about revenge
(notice her expression at 5:48).
She lost track of what’s important in the process of persuing it.
But in the end there was catharsis and thus a happy end.

*SPOILER*

Blender’s future looks brighter than ever and I wish someday to be a part of it.

My positive reactions (after about 5 views) :
Wow! Amazing! Breathtaking! Creates a sense of awe within a short span of time, and evokes many other emotions – such as affection for baby scales etc. The artwork was the strongest part, bravo David!
Kudos and gratitude to the whole team for their efforts!

My negative reactions:
There were a few visual glitches (which others have rather harshly criticised), but not major enough to ruin the viewing.

However, I feel that the story’s loose ends were this short film’s main weakness. It would seem that either the story was complex and the foreshadowing was not properly (or too subtly?) constructed. Or else the pre-production work (the script) was not finalized enough…’the making of’ will possibly reveal more about this.

Before I get *flamed* by the majority who find nothing wrong with the story, I would like to bring out that I am professionally involved in scriptwriting, and that this aspect too is as complex as rigging. Just like in rigging, when it is well done, nobody notices, so it happens with storytelling.
It’s not a matter of not liking sad stories, or expecting to feel the warm fuzzies…some have compared this to Greek tragedies and to Oedipus in particular. But these are well constructed, whereas here, for one thing, nothing prepares me for the fact that Sintel is doomed to kill the only friend that she ever had. By trying to avoid cliché, there is an absence of closure as the story unfolds, and the story elements do not add up (why was she attacked in the first place? Why does the Shaman say that she does not ‘see’ then give her the lance in the next moment – if he ‘sees’, then he is hastening her to her tragedy? Why?). Some scenes such as the times when she is hurt, but the scars disappear the next moment, happen too fast to allow the viewer to note that this is a significant clue.

As a storyteller you are not dumbing down your viewer – like Disney does – but you cannot take for granted what you know about your story and expect the viewer to ‘get it’ right away.
This raises questions about the audience: if it is primarily aimed at blenderheads who will lovingly watch and watch again, yes then it can be full of intricate subtleties that gradually reveal the full ‘flavour’ of the film. But what about the rest of the world who watch this as just another animation? Say alongside the 20 shortlisted vimeo award animations (which are worth a look, by the way).

In large part the story flows well, but the lack of closure about certain semiotic elements give the impression of loose ends – and this ruins a little of the ‘awesomeness’ that this 3rd project conveys.

A humble suggestion for the next project: can the pre-production (at least the script if not the storybooard or animatic) be finalized by the team before production work really begins?
Can the Blender Institute/Foundation envisage opening up the pre-production work to the community (numerous formulas exist), everything will have to be under CC, a team shortlists the top 5-10 scripts and Ton and/or director decides on the best script (and/or storyboard and/or animatic)?

Anyway, I would like to express gratitude to the people who are behind the whole effort, developers, especially, and tell them that their efforts have paid off – the visuals are simply stunning!

I have watch this a couple of times and I love it. But I’m curious about one thing:

The choose of casting someone that is pretty much more older then 15, which were Sintel character, was this a sort of clue that see had become older during the search for Scales? Or is it just a coincident?

@dennis i definitely prefer it to the over-exaggerated high-pitched, squeaky voices they normal use, or the over dramatically mature voices they seem to go with now, her voice seems to be in the middle…for me atleast

I am not sure Ton will read this but I would like to thank him for his efforts to improve the artists lot this time. In the past I have voiced some criticism of the long and perhaps unhealthy hours the artists were turning in to complete their movie and said these undertakings were underfunded and overly ambitious. I listened to Andrew’s interview of Colin today and I am pleased it was mentioned that they had some decent time off and there were many more people involved.
Possibly it still needs a little more resource to do a very good short in the time or the artists need to be able to settle down to productive work sooner but I really appreciate Ton’s effort in finding the extra money and organising more participants.
Thank you Ton.

@ Aza: As you probably saw in the credits the script was written by Esther Wouda. I assume that she knew what she was doing, considering the circumstances and her experience.
Have a look at her website http://www.glowormfilm.com/

Big Fan: nothing changed really, the teams here are always treated with the best possible reception, for housing, travel arrangements, food and drinks, working conditions (great studio), scheduled hours (8 per day), creative freedom, fees, budgets to visit conferences or festivals, and so on. The targets they had to meet were always carefully defined and agreed on, and weekends were by definition free. Per 3 months they could have a week free (paid) time as well.

What helped this time though was to not schedule work on our friday weeklies, and use mondays for kick-off, which loosened up spirits to enjoy weekends. 🙂

The fact people love challenges, work hard, and have a passion for doing it the best way possible is their own investment, for which they get a lot of creative freedom and a great portfolio to take back home.

Thanks for the reply Ton.
I am sure you are not an ogre task master but I know in the past people have voluntarily worked perhaps a little too hard to get things done for the deadline.
I am curious if you think anything could be done to build a productive team sooner.
I think Colin mentioned it took about 4 months to get going this time and I seem to remember Elephants Dream also had a similar period.
Would you like to change the way things work in the studio so there is slightly less freedom for individuals to contribute and more direction?

Yours is certainly one of the most informed critiques here, and the critiques as a whole have gotten more reasonable. However, even as a non-blenderhead, one of the things I appreciate most about the film is that it requires multiple viewings to really get. You say “nothing prepares me for the fact that Sintel is doomed to kill the only friend that she ever had” as though it is a bad thing. If the authors can give all the clues and still catch me by surprise, then I congratulate them. Having an ending so unexpected and moving is what made me want to watch it again. The desire for closure pulled me in and allowed me to appreciate the depth that multiple viewings reveal.

You say “scenes such as the times when she is hurt, but the scars disappear the next moment, happen too fast to allow the viewer to note that this is a significant clue.” Yes, I noticed that on the first pass but quickly dismissed this. It is an example where I was given a clue but chose to overlook it. Perhaps the authors intentionally framed it to encourage that, but again, I say good for them. If they can show me it and still convince me to dismiss it, then that’s my mistake. But do they punish me for my mistake? … no. In the end, I am actually rewarded for allowing them to guide me around such clues. The ending is most potent when my realization coincides with Sintel’s.

It is true that some elements surrounding the shaman and the attacker are not explained, but they are not critical to the plot. I like that they imply a world beyond just the story presented. This feeling of a vast world and the reward that comes from multiple viewings is why I describe the movie as having a depth much greater than its length. I much rather the authors reward viewers that dig deeper than cater to viewers that somehow cannot spare the additional 12 minutes to watch it more than once. If someone watches this film and is not compelled by the “absence of closure” to give it more scrutiny, then that as their loss. The rest of us should not be given a weaker experience for it.

To wrap up, you have valid points. Some viewers will never fully appreciate the film because many things are not clear in the first pass. However, I am very glad the authors went the way they did. Otherwise, they might have ended up with one of many clever but generally forgettable short films. Such films are fine, but why would I want another one when I can have something more?

BigFan: around the conference we’ll do a ‘post-mortem’ with the team members who’ll be visiting Amsterdam. I always take experience from previous projects with me to a next one. However, making a new team to be become a productive unit always just takes time. Three-four months seems to be a very natural period. You have to give people time to grow confident and develop themselves.

@Aza & Jesse
The Attacker – in credits you can see line: Guardian fight choreography with names – so this attacker it some kind of guardian. What was he guarding and why did he attack Sintel? There are two scenes where you can see that Sintel crosses a border made of pebbles with some kind of milestone or something: 0:30 and 7:00. So as guardian his motive is now clear 😉

The Shaman – listen to what he says – the blade has shed much innocent blood – so his motive can be – to stop any further bloodshed even at the cost of the life of Scales. By killing Scales, Sintel is giving up her life of hunter and at the end is she given a promise of new friendship. And the blade stays burried within the collapsed cave.

@Peter: But what is the Guardian guarding. His blade has shed much innocent blood. Did he kill a lot of innocent travelers? And why? The blade also carries a medaillon with a picture of the tree in front of Scales’ cave. Is he some kind of guardian in the service of the dragon from a people who revere the dragon as some sacred animal?

The effects, direction and design of Sintel is superb and quite impressive.

*SPOILERS*

Until adult Scales sniffs Sintel does he recognize her and we see the recognition in his face but not in hers. It’s a heart breaking moment. If only Sintel hadn’t been impulsive. It reminds me of how cloudy and blinding emotions can be…like in Star Wars “Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering”. If only she would have thought first. I felt for both of them, I think Sintel might have not realized Scales was taken by a dragon of its own kind probably to care for it, and she thought he was going to be hurt and wanted to save him.

However; if the ending had been a more positive one, it still would have been powerful. For some strange reason people seem to have the idea that an audience needs to be thrown extremes in order to feel moved; an extreme happy or sad idea, and the world has so much sadness and despair already that when I devote time to art, I truly appreciate when it has the courage to have a positive message. A happy ending or positive one isn’t being “Disney” (which by the way; Bambi’s mother getting killed and the story of The Lion King are pretty sad Disney moments, don’t know why people don’t remember those), it’s being inspirational and hopeful. By the time that Sintel saw Scales taken away from her as a baby it already made me feel sad…that emotional pull would have been enough for the audience as they feel what Sintel is feeling at that point, and after her journey to find Scales I think not having a sad ending wouldn’t have jeopardized the artistic aspect at all! As a viewer who is very sensitive to suffering (ex-vegan, current vegetarian for over 4 years) I felt manipulated and used by the choice of ending. You know what would have been a great moment? Sintel ALMOST killing Scales and then realizing it is him and the film could have ended there with that moment, and maybe her throwing the blade away. It wouldn’t have given too much away and would have hinted at what could have gone wrong. The art carries itself…you don’t need to shove a sad ending as far as it can go just to be anti-Hollywood or make it seem more artsy. And I appreciate the fact that it is similar to Greek tragedies, etc. etc., but Sintel would have been as great as it already is if it had a different ending. Because the characters and visuals were enough to show how brilliant this art form is.

The design of Sintel and Scales plus the characterization of them both was so amazing and both felt so alive which is why the story is heart breaking. I personally would start a petition or pay as much as I could in order to get an alternate ending; especially due to the success I feel it would be a great follow up. I know I definitely would pay a lot of money to see an alternative ending!

Thank you to all who worked on this film; the hard work shows and despite my feelings on the ending, you all did a great job!

Wow, this movie was absolutely spectacular on every level and far above my already huge expectations. I have no shame in admitting that I had tears rolling down my face during the whole thing! Sure the ending is tragic, but the message of the importance of being able to let go of the ones we love would lose its impact if it wasn’t. It also demonstrates the huge advantage of open-movies, as it would be financial suicide to have such an ending for a commercial film. Having said that, I would love nothing more than to see this be turned into a feature film, but that seems very unlikely. I guess I have to learn to let go too :).

Anyway, congratulations Team Durian! The movie is something for you and the whole Blender Community to be very proud of, and it’s been an honour following its progress. Just can’t wait for the DVD!

As a retired elementary school art teacher, 70 years old, I can tell you that one of the great aspects of being retired is having the time to chase down things that interest me. That was the case when I saw Sintel for the first time this morning because a friend sent me the link to a video showcasing site on which it was featured. After watching it several times, I just had to start finding out more. I have now spent more than three hours on various sites, but I must say, reading through this blog was the most fascinating thing of all. I love the fact that Ton responded to the bloggers. I am not very tech-savvy, have never made any vids, and never heard of Blender until now, so most of the tech-speak was not understandable, although the gist of what people were saying did come across. I can’t wait to go back and rewatch it in order to see some of the things mentioned, because although I watched it several times, it was as an ordinary viewer, struck by the whole effect of the film. With each viewing, I picked up more of the subtleties of the story and the graphics, and loved it more each time. I tend to agree with the blogger who said that the YouTube viewers’ responses were a good measure of it’s value to general audiences. I am also totally enthralled by the ending song during the credits, which, to me, can stand alone as totally beautiful, even without it’s attachment to the film’s tone. If anyone can tell me where to get that song, I would be grateful. I am more than willing to buy an album, but buying an MP3 download would also be ok. I don’t know anything about other types of music downloads, but I can download MP3 to my media player. I’m such a newbie, even though I am a senior. After I post this comment, I’m going to check out BBB and ED, as well. I know you’ve seen so many positive comments, but I’m going to add another. – The whole is more than the sum of its parts. The whole film is so much more than just the technicalities. It is an awesome impact. My congrats to the whole Durian team for this insightful film.
Respectfully,
Carol Ross

Man, I wish they’d had time to make it longer! The plot was complete, but had more possibilities. Who are the gatekeepers? Who tried to kill her? What was he guarding? These aren’t crucial to the plot, but it would have been awesome if they could have expanded it some.
Overall, I greatly enjoyed it! The plot was simple, but powerful. A fable, if you will. The visuals were spectacular!
The music was awesome, and I loved the song at the end! Can’t wait to see what they’ll come out with next. Keep dreaming big, guys!

I expect much more from this film. What about story I am disappointed, it´s too sad but that is my view. Technicaly is the film very good only a few things. Places unrealistic movements and that there was much. And flowing blood was terrible. No hugging surface, after flowing .But otherwise good job. I hope that next film will have happy end :))

Hope, you don’t mind a proposal for the next project – in case you still have a look into these comments, any way.
Sintel and Scales gained so much popularity that many asked for a sequel and/or a full feature film.
An easier project is to follow up with a game project.
You made a similar thing after BBB with ‘Yo Frankie!’, trying to reuse the characters from BBB.
I would like to see Sintel and the dragons (the small and the big one) in a realtime environment again.
There are many interactive stories that I can think of.
Expendable companion AI and pet like interaction (feeding, gaining trust/taming…), where you can communicate with the non-player-characters with some mouse clicks are very much appreciated.
I think I am not the only one who would love to play this way with the cute Scales.
This time you know that you won’t need to collaborate with any engine, because the blender engine is worth to be developed, as well.
I would like to see an optimizing of the combination of high resolution model for the normal map and the ingame lowpoly model, easier and faster ways to work with textures (combining, baking, blending)…
When you look at the forums of Unity and 3DGameStudio and others, you see that many people are using Blender for the models and even the levels of their games.
Making Blender fit for Android, and maybe iPhone, is welcomed as well.

Well the rush over the short is over, and people are unlikely to ever read my comment amidst 400+ of them, but I want to say something too…

Bad first:
The CG was not as good as I had been expecting… BBB was pretty dang good, and I suppose this is because Blender is good at dealing with cartoon appearances. However, parts of this short were cartoonish, and other parts were not cartoonish, so it felt as if the styles didn’t match too well. Also, the animating wasn’t on par, there were a lot of rigid moments. The textures were sometimes awesome, but sometimes they weren’t so great… or the textures didn’t go well as a whole. The liquids kinda sucked it up, sorry. The fire was okay, but still need work. The hair was kinda crappy, which surprised me after BBB. Sometimes I feel like the lighting was the source of a lot of the CGness of the short, which detracted from the look.
In whole, I felt like the organic objects were far less attractive than the inorganic objects.
I come at this from comparing it to quality professional movies done by Pixar and Dreamworks. Sintel attempts the quality, however it has a long ways to go before it’s industry comparable.

But now to the good:
The music/audio was very well done! I have no complaints, it was great.
And I know a lot of people didn’t like the plot, but I kind of love it. I haven’t read what it’s supposed to mean, but this is my get up from it:
SPOILER
Sintel has a baby dragon which she likes a lot, then it is taken from her, and she goes on a quest fighting off all sorts of baddies to get it back. Finally when she gets there, she accidentally kills the grown up baby dragon because she doesn’t recognize it. Having realized her error, she walks off ready to give up. However, the new baby dragon follows after her.
My interpretation of this is that we often times get so caught up in the objective of our mission, that we end up destroying the very thing we were trying to save in the beginning. It’s not until it’s too late that we realize what is happening, and by then everything is shattered. One good example of this is with families, and that we originally start working so that we can support our families and take care of ourselves to bring us enjoyment, but then we start becoming obsessed with our jobs, and we neglect our families, and lose what we were trying to preserve in the first place. This is what happened to Sintel, she was trying to save the one thing she absolutely loved, and after a while she became blind to what was going on, and killed her purpose for going on the adventure at the start.
Then the little dragon comes along after her after she realized what she had done, and this signifies that even though we screw up, life isn’t over. We need to recognize that we screwed up, and move on. That’s what this new baby dragon is: another chance…

So I absolutely adored the story, because I’m a big fan of screwing up and getting another chance. 🙂 It was a happy ending.

@ Caroll Ross: Finally someone who is willing to answer your question about the music. The song isn’t available yet because all of the score was written for this film, including the endsong. However it will become available. Here’s what Jan Morgenstern, the composer/suonddesigner, wrote earlier in this thread:

# jan Says:
October 1st, 2010 at 23:01

Hey everyone, thanks so much for the encouraging feedback! Of course there will be a score release again, which will include the credits song. I just need to put some more time into the stereo mastering, and at the moment I’m pretty much swamped with other jobs. But I’ll try my best to get it done within the next two weeks.

Bad: Yes, the liquids – I thought Blender was better at this? Also, some intersections which I didn’t really notice at first…not enough detail in certain areas, mainly the horizon/sky, but maybe this was so we looked at Sintel and not what was occuring in the background? If animals in BBB can run properly, surely it isn’t harder to make a human run/walk? Characters’ mouths didn’t really move like they were talking at times (I know this can be difficult). The Scales disappearing when the mother takes him/her is one of those (doh!) moments…I also didn’t like the way Sintel looked in the rain scene, but maybe that’s just me.

Good: Obviously the time and effort put into the faces; they convey emotions well. The eyes are very nice…I liked the colour scheme for the most part, and most of the camera work was really very good. The most important parts had a lot of detail, and the fire was “good enough for me”.

@ Superkoop

I think I’ll agree with a lot of your comments 🙂 I felt emotional after watching it for the second time after reading a lot of these comments; I’m not that great at identifying what’s going on in a movie – sometimes, I think that is a good thing, because you aren’t concentrating on trying to figure out the entire film… other times it helps to know just so you can feel what the creators intended more-so than what you intend…

There isn’t enough that can be said about this story, there are so many questions and ideas of what might have been and is…

brilliant graphics! congrats to the Durian team. you really did show us capabilities of Blender! keep on pushing it!!

A bit of a crit I still believe that the shaman’s voice was a bit young though, no disrespect to Thom Hoffman.

Other than that, I really love how it unfolds to her that she has actually aged that long. i liked the realisation. my first thought when i saw that scales was the big dragon was that how could he age so fast? watching it again answered it. i loved it!

got my dvd this weekend (oct 29) in the post- its so nice to hold it in my hand knowing how long ago i put the order in! i had no clue what i was really paying for. the fact i new it was a project that would promote the software development seemed reason enough and it hurts my brain thinking about the work that went into it or any of this nature so congrats on a fine product- i figure it will be a matter of enevidibility the blender icon will be showing on the screens of many features to come. i just wish i had the capacity to make one my self, but as a loner it will not happen- but i have a greet software to use if i want to make a still thanks to you: blender foundation!